Development and performance of visible red VCSELs

Summary form only given. Since the first realisation of visible red VCSELs by R.P. Schneider et al. (1993), these devices are attracting more and more interest by science and industry because of their promising application in plastic fiber communication systems. In this paper, we present our approach to realize red VCSELs. We use AlAs/Al/sub 0.5/Ga/sub 0.5/As for the Bragg mirrors and (Al/sub 66/Ga/sub 34/)/sub 5/In/sub 5/P/(Al/sub 33/Ga(67))/sub 5/In/sub 5/P/Ga/sub 40.4/In/sub 59./ /sub 6/P for the active region (quantum well thickness is 6 nm). We use 55/36 mirror pairs for the n/p-side. We also made investigations to reduce the number of mirror pairs. Our devices have a 3/2/spl lambda/-cavity with a node of the electric field at the interface of the optical cavity and the mirror (this is to reduce possible absorption at the P/As interface). We match the optical cavity with the Bragg mirror reflectance, as well as the emission wavelength of the quantum well. We also investigated the effect of gain detuning with respect to the cavity.